Observation of Le Sage gravity analog in complex plasma

Abstract

Fragmentation of a suspension of micron-sized plastic microparticles and their contraction into dense globules was experimentally obtained in a gas discharge plasma, when the plasma density was deliberately and abruptly increased. The globules took up spherical shapes 0.14–1.1 mm in diameters and contained from tens to thousands microparticles. The fragmentation and globule formation appears to be similar to the development of gravitational instability. This process is attributed to the Le Sage's like attraction among microparticles in a dense plasma due to the plasma losses inside a globule hypothesized theoretically in the middle of the 1990s. The key role of plasma flows in the attraction was prominently demonstrated in the same experiment by the distinctly visible disintegration of the globules when we reduced the density of the surrounding plasma to the initial one. Also molecular dynamics simulations of fragmentation of microparticle clouds and globules formation qualitatively resemble typical patterns of the fragmentation and collapse of interstellar nebulae.